By Donu Kogbara

The ongoing drama surrounding the speakership of the House of Representatives has kept me entertained since Monday.

First, we were told, shortly after the April polls, that the PDP leadership, including President Jonathan, had decreed that the new Speaker must be from the South-West while the Deputy Speaker must be from the North-East.

Then we started to hear that a bitter internal squabble was raging within the PDP because most of its House of Reps members strongly disagreed with this emphasis on geographical origins…and had made up their minds to firmly reject any attempts from Party bosses to impose principal officers on them.

Then we watched as 2 rebellious PDP candidates from the “wrong” parts of the country – Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (North-West) and Hon. Emeka Ihedioha (South-East) –  insisted on throwing their hats into the ring.

Then rumours abounded that ex-President Babangida and other Northern PDP stalwarts had initiated this insubordination and were heavily backing Tambuwal and Ihedioha behind the scenes, to pay President Jonathan back for preventing the presidency from reverting to the North after Yar’Adua’s premature death.

Then we saw the Tambuwal and Ihedioha, dressed uncharacteristically (allegedly to disguise themselves in a bid to evade arrest!), gleefully frustrating their opponents and delighting the majority of their peers by emerging victorious.

Then President Jonathan did the gentlemanly thing and congratulated Tambuwal, describing his triumph as “an affirmation of his leadership qualities and commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s democratic institutions.”

Then the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) decided to be a bad loser and declared, after an emergency meeting on Tuesday, that it wasn’t going to congratulate the new Speaker or new Deputy Speaker and wasn’t going to be manipulated into abandoning its belief that zoning is crucial.

Then we were told that “appropriate action” would be taken against the rebels. And since one NWC member has described them as “errant children” who are “on their own”, I’m assuming that expulsion from the PDP is a possibility.

The whole thing is a bit of a farce. And I would have been happier if Mr President had openly distanced himself from this shabby dispute from Day One.

I am not opposed to zoning, but I feel that it isn’t necessary to rigidly apply zoning formulae within every single context; and I really can’t see the sense in carrying on as if zoning is the end all and be all in this day and age.

Will the South-West wither away and die simply because it has lost out on the Speakership front? Obviously not, given that the national cake is big enough for everyone and that Yorubas can be compensated and empowered in other ways.

Many things are far more important than zoning, one being the need for senior politicians to mind their business and quit being so insufferably overbearing.

We are meant to be a modern democracy, not some primitive feudal oligarchy; and we should all be allowed to choose our rulers and representatives.

National Assembly personnel are adults and should be left alone to select their Ogas or Madames; and if most say that they don’t care where the House Speaker or Deputy come from, so be it.  Respect their wishes for Chrissakes!

The general public is subjected to the same type of bullying during the run-ups to elections. Sundry godfathers are always using their financial muscle to rig primaries in a bid to inflict their unwanted relatives and dubious cronies on us. Sometimes they even resort to violence. And the PDP is not the only culprit. Similar injustices occur in states that are dominated by the ACN, CPC et al.

Nigeria is full of governors, legislators, council chairmen, etc, who are deeply unpopular because they are stupid or backward or thuggish or selfish or dishonest…and completely incapable of winning elections fair and square. And the reason we are in a huge mess is that people who are answerable to mentors rather than to voters rarely bother to serve their constituencies diligently.

I am sick of being short-changed by unscrupulous power-brokers and their awful sidekicks, many of whom are either morally bankrupt crooks who should be in jail or chronic inadequates who should be restricted to junior jobs that do not require any intellectual inputs; and I’m very pleased with the House of Reps Honourables who put their feet down and said “no” to interference from Above.

Don’t get too comfortable!

OK, so let me focus on the other side of the coin and say that some of the folks who were sworn into the House of Reps this week do not deserve my applause and aren’t entitled to complain about the PDP leadership’s attempts to impose a Speaker on them because they themselves were imposed on various electorates.

The truth is that both the House of Reps and Senate are harbouring quite a few people who did not actually win the elections they claim to have won and are being legally challenged, as I write, by the rivals and constituents they cheated.

I’m willing to accept the possibility that some of them are innocent and are being unfairly maligned by deluded or malevolent adversaries. But I know for a fact that some of them are guilty as charged…and have so much concrete evidence against them that they will lose when their election tribunal cases come up…unless everyone who can influence the outcome is bribed or killed.

Interestingly, some of these dodgy characters have sponsored newspaper adverts in which God is invoked as the architect of their fraudulent success.

Do these shameless fakes not realise that it is absolutely blasphemous to ally the Almighty’s holy name to conduct that was extremely unChristian?

I was very irritated when they arrived in Abuja last weekend, accompanied by vast entourages, to arrogantly sit on seats that they have no right to occupy.

One can only urge them not to get too comfortable on these seats because election tribunal cases have to be concluded within 180 days. And – trust me! – some of these imposed “winners” will be unceremoniously turfed out of the National Assembly by Christmas.

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